Shot in the Dark

Data Point

The school district in rural Spirit Lake, Minnesota is going to have armed staff on premises

“It’s really our obligation and duty to do whatever we can to protect them. And we talk about school shootings, and you have an active shooter, a killer, in your building, the number one way to save lives is to address the killer immediately,” Spirit Lake Community School District Superintendent David Smith said.

This being Minnesota, they are doing with an extra special bureaucratic twist; they are selecting (secretly, and anonymously) 10 staffers, and putting them through some extra training.

Which is way better than nothing; merely knowing that the school is not a “gun free zone“ will go a long way toward detering any potential nonsense.

This being Minnesota, again, there will be dissent:

“I believe there are better ways to go about it, and all kinds of security measures that can take place as opposed to adding more guns into a school building,” said Harold Prior, a Spirit Lake resident and former school administrator.

I always want to delve into the vast self-defense experience of people like Mr. Prior and ask them what they think is “better ways”.

But I will take this – to my knowledge, the first school district in Minnesota to openly lose the “gun free zone“ label – is at least a move in the right direction.

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Mitch Berg

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21 responses to “Data Point”

  1. mjb003 Avatar
    mjb003

    Having grown up there with a mother having taught in that school district, I need to correct your blog that this is NW Iowa. Only about 20 miles from Minnesota border, but Iowa nonetheless.

  2. John "Bigman" Jones Avatar
    John “Bigman” Jones

    yeah well their iowans so what do you expect

  3. Emery Avatar
    Emery

    It’s really fascinating that the same politicians who think teachers are so horrible and incompetent are the same ones who are so ready to hand them firearms. It’s almost like they don’t know what their jobs are.

  4. John "Bigman" Jones Avatar
    John “Bigman” Jones

    not all teachers are the same dumass my english teacher was afraid of bugs and loud noises but my football coach could throw a kid over the lockers ask me how i know

    its a matter of mental attitude my brother hunted deer with the shop teacher and his kid i bet if anybody attacked the school he would be first at the door to defend his students with a gun or without

    with is better

    well usually better maybe not if the teacher is a maroon like walz wouldnt trust him with a squirt gun

  5. Ultra Maga Mammuthus Primigenesis Avatar
    Ultra Maga Mammuthus Primigenesis

    The venn diagram of horrible and incompetent teachers and teachers who are willing to risk their lives to stop a school shooter probably don’t show much overlap.
    The motto of woke teachers seems to be: “I will mess your kid up, you parents will have to deal with it for the rest of your lives.”

  6. Emery Avatar
    Emery

    How exactly would this work? You have a gunman running rampant in a school shooting, then teachers come out and start hunting him down with guns drawn, then police come in and you have several people with guns drawn — how do the police know who the gunman is? What about all the potential crossfire? This is a recipe for utter chaos. Knowing how to manage a crisis situation with a gun is very different than just learning how to handle and shoot a gun at a non-moving, non-breathing target. Plus you’ll have teachers having to be mindful all day while they’re attempting to teach, that they have a loaded gun either on their person or nearby — a whole other set of potential problems comes along with that. This is utter insanity. These are schools with our children, not prisons or war zones. Oh wait, they are actually becoming war zones.

  7. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    MP, that is statistically much more likely to happen and has much larger impact and on many more kids. ie woke has to be fought with much more vigor, shooters can be dealt with much easier (Uvalde pig situation notwithstanding) than these bastards.

  8. bosshoss429 Avatar
    bosshoss429

    Well, Emery, we all know that you and your ilk, don’t really care about school shootings. Those are just opportunities for sick bastards like Beto, Dean Phillips and Tina Smith, to raise funds and criticize their opponents. II mean what’s the difference? Kill ‘em in the womb to prevent them from getting shot or, in the case of women, breast cancer, heh Em?

  9. Emery Avatar
    Emery

    We don’t pay them anything. We denigrate them. We ask them to do way too much already for too little pay. And now we’re going to arm them (only the ‘good’ ones I guess) and give them lethal force to carry or keep in their classrooms. Do we really want to create a prison-style environment in our schools?

  10. Mr. D Avatar
    Mr. D

    “Armed staff” isn’t necessarily a teacher. There are lots of people who work in a school building. Could be the shop teacher, could be the vice principal, could be a custodian, could be a lunch lady. Could be all of them. The shooter won’t know who is packing heat, but the shooter will know there is a high likelihood he will face armed resistance within the building. Will it deter a shooter? I don’t know, but I do know schools that are gun-free zones are ripe for the picking.

  11. Mr. D Avatar
    Mr. D

    We don’t pay them anything. We denigrate them. We ask them to do way too much already for too little pay.

    Median salary for a teacher in Minnesota: $56,412
    Average salary (all positions) in Minnesota: $52,678

    Median and average mean different things, but the notion we don’t pay teachers anything is ridiculous. While we all know the purpose of a troll is to elide meaningful distinctions, don’t be bringing that Randi Weingarten baked wind in here and expect to be taken seriously.

  12. Emery Avatar
    Emery

    Along with arming the staff — might want to consider ballistic vests for the students as well…

  13. Mr. D Avatar
    Mr. D

    Along with arming the staff — might want to consider ballistic vests for the students as well…

    Why? Be specific.

  14. Pig Bodine Avatar
    Pig Bodine

    “Along with arming the staff — might want to consider ballistic vests for the students as well…”

    Why, what are you planning Emery?

  15. bosshoss429 Avatar
    bosshoss429

    With the average teacher pay of $56,412, I’d say that considering all the breaks, days off and summer vacation, they get paid a lot for working less than 7 months per year.

    As Mr. D points out, it doesn’t have to be a teacher. The average school has a bloated administrative budget. Hire a veteran that is well trained in firearms safety and use. Call the person a special assistant to the principal. Better yet, just use the DemoCommie’s catch all for those 501c3 non profits that they funnel money to and call them “Consultants”.

  16. John "Bigman" Jones Avatar
    John “Bigman” Jones

    crossfires from too many shooters thats your big worry well geez e whiner how do they do it in hospitals and banks and police stations who all have armed security
    i mean whens the last time you heard of innocent people dying in a crossfire in a courthouse

  17. Blade Nzimande Avatar
    Blade Nzimande

    Quality, private schools don’t have these kinds of problems.

    Of course, the staff at private schools do not spend their time driving the students crazy with degenerate, insane leftist bullshit. And students displaying emotional or mental instability are identified and cared for.

  18. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    Regarding how arming teachers would work, it would work in exactly the same way it works for the public as a whole; predominantly in the mind of the wannabe active shooter. They do not necessarily fear death, as evidenced by their tendency to kill themselves and spare the public the necessity of a trial, but they do fear failure.

    Enter the unknown teachers who might return fire in the school, and what you have is the post powerful weapon against the grandiose psychotic; uncertainty. That classroom might be defenseless, or the 5′ 100lb kindergarten teacher set to retire the next year might have a bit of Annie Oakley in there.

    It’s not a substitute for other measures like enhanced mental health care, but it is a last ditch possibility. Good things happen, shall we say, when bad people have a reason to hesitate before acting.

  19. Blade Nzimande Avatar
    Blade Nzimande

    I think rAt is worried about drawing fire from his photo platform in the bushes next to the playground.

  20. In The Mailbox: 08.29.22 : The Other McCain

    […] By Anarchists, also, Rubio Calls Demings “Do-Nothing Congresswoman” Shot In The Dark: Data Point, Fermented, and The Media’s Loving Embrace STUMP: More on the Mystery Death Spike of CT and […]

  21. Ian Avatar
    Ian

    Enter the unknown teachers who might return fire in the school, and what you have is the post powerful weapon against the grandiose psychotic; uncertainty. That classroom might be defenseless, or the 5′ 100lb kindergarten teacher set to retire the next year might have a bit of Annie Oakley in there.

    Ever notice the inconsistent levels of expectation with the Left? If it’s our idea, you pretty much have to show, with peer-reviewed models, how their envisioned worst-case scenario will never happen– the historical data is never quite good enough.

    But if it’s their idea, you’ll be branded a bigot if you request realistic, supporting data, or show them the flaws in their logic.

    It fits with the leftist tendency to manage to the exception.

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